Ensemble Studio Theatre Founder Curt Dempster Dies at Age 71

Curt Dempster, founding Artistic Director of Ensemble Studio Theatre, was found dead at his home in New York City on January 19. The cause remains undetermined.

Born Frank Curtin Dempster on November 1, 1935, in Detroit, Michigan, Curt Dempster founded the Ensemble Studio Theatre in 1971 and led it to prominence as the most influential developmental theater in the United States for two generations of theater artists. He produced or developed over 6,000 new plays, including those of Arthur Miller, Horton Foote, Wendy Wasserstein, Christopher Durang, David Mamet, Marsha Norman, Frank D. Gilroy and Tennessee Williams. Playwrights who were first discovered and developed at EST include Richard Greenberg, John Patrick Shanley, Arthur Giron, Jose Rivera, Eduardo Machado, Shirley Lauro, Edward Allan Baker, Cassandra Medley, Susan Kim, Leslie Ayvazian and many more.

In 1993, Dempster was honored by Carnegie Mellon University for his lifelong commitment to developing new American plays and received an OBIE a year laster for EST's annual Marathon of new one-act plays. Other awards include the Brandeis University Creative Arts Award, the Drama League Citation, the Outer Critics Circle Award and the American Theatre Wing Annual Award. Dempster served on the Board of the Society of the Stage Directors and Choreographers, as a consultant for the New York State Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

As a director, he staged new plays by Joyce Carol Oates, Tennessee Williams, Frank D. Gilroy, Edward Allan Baker and Horton Foote, including critically acclaimed productions of Foote's Road to the Graveyard and Blind Date. Described by the New York Times as "an innovative force in theater," Dempster has also directed The Crucible by Arthur Miller, The Seagull by Anton Chekov, and an experimental production of Hamlet with Jon Voight in the title role. During his apprenticeship he served as Assistant Director to Jerome Robbins and Ulu Grosbard.

As an actor, Dempster appeared on Broadway Peter Weiss' The Investigation, and in the long-running off-Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's A View From the Bridge with Robert Duvall and Jon Voight. He was also featured in the films Desperately Seeking Susan and The Manhattan Project.

As a playwright, Dempster's work include In Defense of Leonard Peltier, presented at EST during the 1990-91 season, Déjà Vu, Michigan South, The Only Son and Mimosa Pudica, which was selected for publication in Best Short Plays 1977. His screenplay Off Day was produced at the Eugene O'Neill Conference Television Workshop in 1978, the same year he received a writing grant from the Jerome Foundation. At the time of his death, Dempster was teaching acting, directing and playwriting at EST's Institute for Professional Training and Lexington Center for the Arts, and led three labs in New York.

Memorial arrangements will be announced at a later date.